In recent weeks we have seen the ugly truth of what a post-Christian America looks like. From the unveiling of a statue of Baphomet by Satanists in Detroit last weekend, to the release of multiple undercover videos of Planned Parenthood sorting through aborted babies and negotiating the sale of their parts, Americans have witnessed nothing less than the manifestation of pure evil in our time. Satan is indeed prowling about our country seeking the ruin of souls.
In the midst of this moral depravity and horrific evil I recently came across Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical “Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus”. While it was written over a century ago (November 1, 1900), his prophetic words cry out for our full attention today. The citizens of our sick land need to ponder the words of Pope Leo.
“From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour’s Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor self-devotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God’s law…” (TFP, 7)
“As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from “The Way.” The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively…Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God’s providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men’s minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.” (TFP, 8)
Photo of the Tomb of Pope Leo XIII, by Giulio Tadolini (1849-1918), St John Lateran, Rome.
Brian, the problem is that you converted to Catholicism on the idea that our religion turned to stone in late 19th / early 20th century. Knox, Benson, Chesterton et al were a product of their time. Belloc came along with his anti-jew ramblings and suddenly the Chester/Belloc beast wasn’t all that funny.
Bottom line: Catholicism is not the Tea Party at prayer.
Regards, and hope you find a religion that meets your needs.
Nice rebuttal. The sand must be warm and comforting to you.
The Catholic Church was “stone” since Christ. It didn’t have to “turn”. The Church was built on a Rock and has always been that way. You are confusing the men who are part of The Church, with The Church.
Ralph-
Just one question. In this day and age of communication and information most of us stick to our little opposing corners or cracks (drudge, newsmax, slate, huffpo, wonkette(yer fave) …et al.) and discuss what we want to discuss without much ado, why would you bother coming here to lecture folk?
The only answer I can offer is that you need to be right, that is, affirmed in your convictions. Whether wrong or right you will use any means, even being…..mean. Kind of like a bully.
I must respectfully ask that if you are to continue posting here you find it in your heart to include evidence with your posts to help everyone make an informed decision.
Further and finally, little “o” orthodox is by far the very next step from the latin church. If that doesn’t work, then we start talking big “O.”
Are you seriously suggesting that one can’t have multiple interests? I am a Catholic, a liberal and have an enquiring mind.
You seem to want to live in an echo chamber where your beliefs are not challenged. If so, your faith is very fragile.
But you don’t inquire, you lecture. There’s a difference. Considering the state of the world I do indeed seek out an echo chamber. Especially when said echo chamber is a site like this. I like to come home… flip on the web….. and seek out those like minded in the Truth of Christ. You call it echo chamber, I call it licking my wounds after worldly battle.
I particularly dislike when ones such as yourself find your way to a site like this and then start an argument. It doesn’t benefit a single person one iota, well I take that back. You seem to enjoy it.
And further when the two interests are mutually exclusive as you stated above being both liberal and Catholic, I would indeed suggest to not continue both. Pick one and go for it. I would prefer you pick Catholicism but you are allowed free will of course.
You are not “rebutting” Brian, frrolfe, but rather Pope Leo XIII. Brian is only drawing our attention to a Universal truth about human society, and man himself. That truth is indeed, written in stone.
I doubt, sir, that you have read Belloc’s lengthy book on the Jews for that work is very complex and a highly intelligent work.
As for completely misunderstanding what you so wrongly responded to, that is an example of a profound lack of reading comprehension on your part.
O, and google books has “The Jews” by Belloc online for free
There are many things that come to mind when I think of Leo XIII. I confess that “Tea Party” isn’t one of them.
Over 66 million – sixty six million – white Christian Russians were exterminated/killed between the years of 1917 and 1953 at a time when Russia was run by Jews (this according to Solzhenitsyn (And men wonder why his last book will never be translated/published in America) and yet you have been trained to complain about a book by Hilaire Belloc.
Well, one does have to give credit to the Cultural Marxists, they sure do know how to keep the goyim slaving for them in the intellectual guilt camps.
But what are the lives of sixty six million christian goyim when compared to the putative six million lives of the racial supremacists?
We all know who has memorials and movements dedicated to them and we all know that the history of the Messias-Deniers must be taught in our schools and Catholic Churches but there is not one in one hundred million catholics who have even heard of what happened to the christians in Russia for their lives do not matter; never have, never will.
How many deaths can be attributed to Hilaire Belloc and his book and what Catholic leader will begin demanding that The Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church insist that public and Parochial Schools teach the history of the Christian Genocide in Russia that was administered by Jews?
When will my Church being teaching the truth of what has happened to faithful, innocent, Christians?
Its probably best not to defend Belloc by going on an anti-semitic rant. Do you really believe that no one in the west knows about the genocides in Russia and Ukraine?
With regard to the CHEKA, according to Wiki, the explanation of the term is as follows:
The name of the agency was originally “The All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution andSabotage”[1][3] (Russian: Всеросси́йская чрезвычайная коми́ссия по борьбе́ с контрреволюцией и саботажем;Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya po bor’bye s kontrrevolyutsiyei i sabotazhem), but was often shortened to “VCheka” or “Cheka,” after its Russian initials.
The Russian Communists were monsters. You don’t need to over-egg the cake by throwing in ludicrous assertions about the dominance of Jews in the 1917 revolution and all the horrors that followed.
You prove my point. Agast at being confronted by Sparty you search web for a refute, so that you indeed may be right once again. Seems your faith might be as fragile as mine.
Unfortunately your refute is not strong at all as you site wiki…….. and you just define the term Cheka. Add something, evidence, anything. Contribute.
I really don’t know what your point is. What has searching wiki got to do with faith? I am not a marxist and I have no interest in defending the horrors of communism. Anti-semitism is disgusting.
Hitler saw all Slavs as sub-human. Who is the biggest monster?
Obfuscate, deflect, sidestep. The last refuge of a wrong-headed liberal.
Point is I will pray for you.
Any fact about Jews that is presented is reflexively responded to by charges of anti-semitism which merely illustrates how your mind has been cultivated by enemies of The One True Church.
So, IANS will turn this around on you and accuse you of being an AntiChrist for defending they who deny Jesus Christ is the Messias; and they just do not deny that truth, rather, the Messias-Deniers, in the Talmud, teach that Jesus is the bastard son of Mary who was raped by a Roman Soldier while she was menstruating and that Jesus was justly put to death for blasphemy and Jesus is now in Hell submerged in boiling shit.
Cheka is a Yiddish word meaning animal slaughter but that will be unconvincing to those who never read behind wiki…
My source was identified, Solzhenitsyn, whereas the best you appear capable of is typing neo-con boilerplate.
O, and you completely missed my point about how it is that….O, never mind, you didn’t get it the first time even though it still is right before your eyes to be read by one and all.
Adios…
OK. Believe what you want. How do the other commenters on this blog feel about your views?
He doesn’t seem anti-semetical, just knowledgable about this particular vein of human on human crime. He sure does offer up a lot of factual evidence.
It’s not necessarily how others ‘feel’ about comments, frolfe. We can feel any way we’d like, but that won’t change history. Believing something hard enough doesn’t make it true either. Rather, the truth, that is reality, and the Faith, is there for us to believe if we are desirous of doing so and persistent enough in seeking it. (Settling for the current mode of what constitutes ‘hate speech’ is contrary to that search.)
That is why before accusing others of being anti-semetic you may want to go a little deeper to understand what being against something is and what, perhaps that ‘something’ is.
Nobody is against individuals here. Not in the least. Rather they are ‘for’ individuals and that is why the push is to spread the truth. Many desire to kill it, or at the very least cast the good and true as somehow evil (kind of like they do with Christ and His teaching.)
So if you’ve got a truly liberal and inquiring mind, try going against what you think you know or what you have been told is automatically bad. And don’t engage in knee jerk protestations of anti-semetism. That’s a blackout word for actual conversation.
Among the many who know that CHEKA is a Yiddish word meaning animal slaughter is Brother Nathanel, a Jew who converted to Christianity and who says, publicly, that …indeed, CHEKA comes form the Hebrew word for animal slaughter shechita.
Brother Nathanael is a sad, disturbed person who has been disowned by the Orthodox Church. I am disgusted that you are allowed to comment on a supposedly “Catholic” site. Possibly the owner/moderator of this site needs to do a thorough examination of conscience before his next Confession.
Post the proof that he was “disowned.”
What did happen was a public statement was issued (it can be read by googling (http:johnsanidopulous.com) stating that he did not have their blessings.
What is “disowning” anyways?
But, of course, that action was to be expected given what he says at his website, which IANS has read for years.
You probably have never heard of Dynamic Silence and how it is routinely applied to those who speak/write about the Jews (Dr. E. Michael Jones, Michael Hoffman, etc well know of it) but you are part of the liberal Hive who do not even have to have knowledge of the facts about such character assassination – you just sense how to act when it comes to a controversial person Jews hate.
And you, of course, never bother to define what it is you mean by antisemitic and you, likely, will not do so now as the main reason why Catholics call others antisemitic is to establish that they are not like those blackguards; that is, it is a jejune act equivalent to saying, You’ve got cooties.
Well, Joseph Sobran was right when he observed that once anti semitism was a label applied to those who hated Jews whereas now it is a label Jews apply to those they hate.
Let IANS ask you a question. Can Messias-Deniers be saved?
The previous Pope. in his trilogy, asserted that the church ought not strive to convert Jews. Can you think of any worse example of anti semitism?
Luke 19:27 But for those my enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them hither and kill them before me
Messiah-Deniers are headed for Hell. Period. So what are you doing to lead them to conversion? Are you praying for their conversion at daily Mass? Is their conversion a part of your daily (15 decades) Rosary intentions?
IANS does those two things daily and he doubts you do.
So, who is the antisemite here?
Google
statement from the Chancery of the ROCOR Synod of Bishops
for their opinion of Brother Nathanel.
As for his opinions on his site/blog, they are a very useful source for those capable of thinking for their own selves and who are not willing to be cowed by appeals to the genetic fallacy.
Google
Crimes of the Bolsheviks by Darkmoon
to see another example of what the Yiddish word, Cheka, means.
The Cultural Marxists (what we now call “PC”) have been extremely successful in their attempt to create a neo-black legends category and so most unpleasant facts about the Jews tend to appear on sites the vast majority of men have allowed themselves to be trained to think are sad, bad, evil, anti semitic etc etc and one of those institutions bearing blame for some of this unacceptable thought crime confusion is the Catholic Church which refuses to speak truth to jewish power but, rather, for the past one-half + century has sought a political accommodation with the Messias-Deniers.
So, this was fun. Another day, another accusation of antisemitism.
O, and any man can google
Civilta Cattolica: Jewish Question in Europe + Traditional Catholic
and read for their own selves what we used to think and say about the Jews before the acolytes of the Frankfort Schooled seized control of the minds of all Americans, especially the Catholics who have been culturally conditioned and catechised after Vatican Two.
Thanks for drawing our attention to this passage. So so true, and a much needed reminder in our time.
In this era of the propagation of unbridled evil and of apostasy, the faithful Catholic need only look back upon the riches of Holy Mother Church provided by the Saints and Holy Popes.
Their insights, prompted by the Holy Ghost, are timeless truths never-changing as the winds blow where people believe they have progressed beyond reality to some unknown revelation when in fact, there is nothing new under the sun.
To the detriment of souls and the whole world, the Church has rejected too many of these riches upon which She proclaimed the Good News and brought the world the Light of Christ which “when absent “reason fails.” Instead, She adopted the philosophies and errors of those who Pope Leo exposed as having “false pride which places man at the summit of all things.” In so doing,
But Mr. Williams is mistaken when he states that America was once a Christian nation. The only true Christian is the Catholic who believes in the whole Truth of Christ, not rejecting one iota of it as those do who are outside of the true faith. America was not founded upon the Truth who is Christ, but upon the errors of men who, outside of the one, true Church, built a false foundation which as time has shown, will crumble and eventually fall.
Thanks Brian. Great reminder of how it used to when we had a Pope who reminded folks that As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from “The Way
A potential vacuum is always filled.
The recent collapse of Christianity, due largely to the confusion, lack of Faith by the Catholic Hierarchy in the post-Vatican II period, caused by the so-called “Spirit of Vatican II” faction, who as we now see were/are liberal/Relativists, has been disastrous
The resulting silence, has allowed this sorry state of affairs to happen.
So, as well as Secularism, Paganism has flooded in. The Hierarchy have a lot to answer for, and frankly, still have. Confusion and silence still reign.
Leo XIII was but expressing the Tradition of the One True Church, The Catholic Church.
His teaching was ignored, critically, and initially naively, from St John XXIII, onwards
I realise this blog is written from a U S point of view, but things are probably even worse
now on this side of the pond, in Europe.
More and more I am coming to believe that the Catholic laity, those ordinary but believing Catholics, will be the vehicle to save the Church, as they have done before. But they have to speak out simply loudly and clearly in society at large and within the Church!
“Man is the King of the Universe!” – Our Holy Father, Pope Francis July 14, 2014
Surely you mean he said, “The Son of Man is the King of the Universe!” Because the other doesn’t quite sound right.
I agree that it doesn’t sound quite right. You must also be a Catholic.
We have to take our Holy Father at the words he actually says, not what he ought to have said.
Please scroll down to the last paragraph for the source.
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-who-will-be-discarded-next
I don’t know what to make of these strange times we live in, and the seemingly strange words that come from the Vicar of Christ.
Perhaps someone more intelligent and holy
than me can convincingly interpret them in a way to make them mean what the Church has always taught.
Thanks for posting excerpts of a beautiful encyclical.